Madrid Open, Thursday

I got to the venue early to buy an extra ticket for Stadium 2 cos pretty much all the matches there looked good.

With Sharapova's w/o there was not much happening in the morning, so I took in some more practices

Radwanska:

The gorgeous Dulko:

A little bit of Ferru:

I was keeping an eye out for Serena and Woz to start so I could make my way to CC. I hadn't seen Woz yet at all, not even practice. And I didn't fancy her chances against Serena so I had to make sure I got to see her now ;)

She played better than I expected her too, or maybe it looked that way cos Serena was clearly not on her game yet.

After the first set, I moved to Stadium 2 for Dolgopolov and Tsonga and more importantly, a seat in the shade. This was a fun match. A bit of a lull in the third set, but very entertaining. I don't think Tsonga likes playing Dolgo :p

Now it was time to finally see Delpo play :) Cilic was clearly half asleep in the first set. The second set was much closer. Crowd support was 80% on Delpo's side

Delpo signing stuff after his win:

The timing turned out just right so Marc and Marcel started their match against Llodra/Zimonjic as Delpo finished. I sprinted back to the other court, just to get in on the first change over

I also met up with Kath and Anne again here. M&M were solid, but Marcel especially was brilliant in the second set <3

I tried to get their Match Point. Didn't totally manage it but here is a bit of it nonetheless:

I said goodbye to Kath and Anne since they were leaving Madrid now and returned to Stadium 2 where Ferrer had just won the first set over Almagro.

Boy, this match was bad for my nerves. Almagro played so good. But then, so did David <3 I'm very relieved David got through it in the end, but it was real fight from both of them.

Simon and Tipsarevic were next up and I was hoping to see if Simon could step it up against Tipsy, so I stayed on. Once it was clear that wasn't gonna happen, I left.

That Ferru/Nico match. /o\ Must have been amazing being there. I was a bundle of nerves - for both guys! - just watching it on a stream. The atmosphere there must have been crazy. XD David was amazing for pulling it off, but I was also so sad for Nico. He must have been crushed.

Great pictures again. Reading about your 'adventures' is a lot of fun, even if I'm jealous I'm not there. ;)

There was a lot of crowd support for Nico ;) Of course, also for David <3 Near the end everyone was just going crazy over every winner, regardless who produced it :p It was so close you could feel the tension at every MP.

Seeing today, I think it might even have been better if Nico had gone through. If he could have played like he did in that match with Ferru, he would have been a bigger challenge to Federer than Ferru...

Fed/Raonic looked like it must have been nerve-wracking for Fed-fans, from following it on the livescores. I didn't see any of it, so I couldn't tell if the tennis was any good. But having seen Fed tonight against Ferrer, Federer certainly doesn't look troubled by the quality of the surface.

Monfils certainly has an unconventional approach to doubles :p But then, he kinda has that to tennis in general.